GOP LG Candidates Meet And Do Battle -- Sorta.

Whoever Said There’s No Points ...
... for second place never talked to the six men and one woman running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor this year.

For about an hour this afternoon, the GOP’s second banana aspirants met in a televised public forum where they strenuously argued their qualifications for a job whose only constitutional requirements are presiding over the state Senate, chairing the state Pardons Board and periodically checking the pulse of the man in the Big Chair.

Along the way, they recited familiar Republican bromides about reducing the size of state government, lowering taxes and making Pennsylvania friendlier to business.

“We’re being told we can spend our way to prosperity,” said Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley. “We must make sure that government lives within its means. Government doesn’t create jobs. Government creates bureaucracy.”

Pennsylvania Republicans meet Saturday in a downtown hotel to make endorsements for U.S. Senate, governor and lieutenant governor.

The gubernatorial candidates – Attorney General Tom Corbett and state Rep. Sam Rohrer of Berks County – will meet in a separate, televised forum tonight, as will U.S. Senate hopefuls Pat Toomey of Lehigh County and Peg Luksik of Johnstown. All three events will be broadcast by the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

This afternoon, the lieutenant governor hopefuls sketched out their vision for the office. Most said they intended to work as a partner with the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee – even if they had to be periodically reminded that the nominee had yet to be selected.

In the first of many references, Watkins said he’d “be working for the great governor we’re going to elect in November, Tom Corbett. And I’d be helping him with his agenda.”

The repeated coronations prompted Johnson to quip that if Corbett “heard so many people call him [governor] he’d tell you stop it because it’s bad luck.”

Amid their flurry of agreement on the need for lower taxes and less government regulation, the candidates also found time to reach accord on the need for reforming Harrisburg.

Diamond, who spearheaded opposition to the notorious government pay raises of 2005, made repeated calls for what he described as a “limited constitutional convention” to fix many areas of state government.

“Pennsylvania is broken,” he pronounced.

Diamond went on to later claim, in response to a question about jobs, that “we have yet to see one instance of downsizing in state government.”

According to Rendell administration data, 721 state employees were furloughed as a result of last year's 101-day debate over the state budget.

The shale deposits, she argued, represented a bonanza for the state that could create countless jobs while spurring economic development.

“What is being proposed by the current administration is just ridiculous,” she said. “As The Beatles said, ‘Let it Be.’ … Let it be our biggest priority as far as development in this state.”

All seven candidates agreed on the need for an elected lieutenant governor – despite the fact that two Senate presidents pro tempore, ex-Sen. Robert C. Jubelirer, R-Blair, and current Sen. Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson have taken on the constitutionally mandated role of lieutenant governor when there were openings in the post.

Unlike the vice-president, the lieutenant governor is elected not selected. Under state law, the lieutenant governor runs in his or her own right, and runs as a joint ticket with the gubernatorial nominee. In practice, however, the gubernatorial nominees tend to have some say in their eventual partner.

“Could you imagine, in midstream of an administration, something happens to the governor and someone like the pro tempore steps up from a different party. All of a sudden, you’ll have mayhem in Harrisburg,” DiFrancesco said

That’s already happened in the Democratic Rendell administration.

Republican Scarnati became lieutenant governor in November 2008 with the death of Catherine Baker Knoll.

Beiler, who ran unsuccessfully for auditor general against Jack Wagner in 2008, called for Republicans to forgo an expected voice roll call for the endorsement in favor of a secret ballot. In an interview after the forum, Beiler claimed pressure was being put on some party members to vote a certain way in the LG race.

“Voting by secret ballot opens it up,” for party members to vote their consciences, he said.